Standing atop a building more than ten stories high, a cold gaze was cast downward through the mask.
Large numbers of armed police officers and CCG were operating in the area, engaging the ghouls hiding there. The armed police from the security division were even using bullets specifically designed to counter ghouls, though Raize was skeptical of their effectiveness.
If such anti-ghoul bullet technology truly existed, why would they still rely on close-combat quinques?
Obviously, according to official statements, such bullets or equipment couldn't be mass-produced and couldn't deal with overly powerful ghouls—just a pile of flimsy excuses.
Rat-a-tat-a-tat…
Police officers raised shields in defense while rifles fired from behind. Ordinary ghouls hadn't even had time to react before being riddled with bullets.
Gunfire echoed constantly throughout the area, yet Raize, watching coldly from the shadows, noticed that no one was using heavy weapons. Even the sound of a grenade explosion took a long time to appear.
Amon wielded a hammer-like quinque, swinging it in a wide arc and smashing a male ghoul's head out of shape, brains splattering everywhere. He was clearly dead.
Suddenly, however, something moved behind Amon. A male ghoul wearing a crying mask, with both arms wrapped in spiral swords formed from blue kagune, raised his arms and viciously stabbed toward the back of Amon's head.
"Die!"
The crying-mask ghoul roared, his kagune about to pierce Amon's skull.
Splurt!
The sound of flesh tearing and blood spraying rang out—but it didn't come from Amon. It came from the attacking ghoul instead.
With two dull thuds, two severed arms wrapped in kagune fell beside Amon. He glanced at them without surprise, then turned around and looked up to see a ghoul with both arms cut off, his chest pierced by a black-and-red kagune.
"Amon, be careful."
Mado wore a crazed, twisted smile on his face, one hand holding a quinque. The kagune piercing the ghoul had come from him.
With a slight flick of his arm, the black-and-red kagune embedded in the ghoul's chest split apart and tore outward, ripping the ghoul cleanly in two.
"Damn Investigators!"
Another middle-aged ghoul, breaking through the encirclement of other investigators, charged straight at Mado. Feathered kagune spread from his back, and propelled by RC cell jets, he moved at extreme speed.
The wing-like kagune fired countless sharp RC cell crystals like machine-gun fire, completely blanketing Mado's position.
"Haahhh—!"
Amon instantly moved behind Mado and shouted, raising his quinque. He flipped the activation switch, fully energizing it, and swung it hard forward.
Clang!
With a crisp sound, the foremost wave of incoming RC crystal fire was smashed apart by Amon's strike.
Clang clang clang—
At this moment, the seemingly bulky quinque in Amon's hands turned into a whirling storm, striking again and again like a violent gale. With each sharp impact, every incoming RC crystal was shattered.
"Amon!"
As soon as the barrage ended, Mado rushed straight at the ukaku type ghoul. He knew that speed-focused ghouls were generally poor at close combat and would enter a brief fatigue period after firing a large volley of RC crystals.
Closing the distance, he leapt up with a maniac grin and viciously chopped his quinque toward the ghoul's head.
The ghoul, experienced in battle, was no pushover. He whipped his ukaku forward like a blade and met the strike head-on without retreating.
Clang!
A harsh collision rang out, sparks flying between the two opposing races.
The physical disparity between humans and ghouls was enormous. After the head-on clash, Mado was sent flying backward.
"Amon!"
Veteran as he was, Mado knew brute force wasn't the way to deal with ghouls. While being knocked back, he shouted Amon's name.
"Senpai, let's go together!"
With a sharp cry, Amon spun in place, angling his heavy quinque to the side and swinging it toward the direction Mado was flying.
Perfect timing—Mado's foot landed squarely on it.
Whoosh!
Amon let out a low shout and swung his quinque in a full arc, launching Mado straight at the ghoul.
Like a cannonball, Mado flew forward. Under the ghoul's shocked gaze, he hurled the quinque in his hand straight at him.
Clang!
Splurt!
The sound of metal colliding was immediately followed by the tearing of flesh.
"Ah!"
The ukaku ghoul let out a miserable scream. He had blocked Mado's initial thrown attack, but the investigators who followed up caught the rebounding quinque and exploited the opening, slicing off one of his arms.
"Die, damn it!"
The ghoul stared at Mado's crazed grin. To him, that twisted smile looked like pure mockery.
His ukaku kagune flared again, firing another dense wave of RC crystal attacks at close range.
This time, at such a short distance, let's see how you react!
The ghoul snarled inwardly. Even if Mado dodged this wave, he would seize the opening and make him pay.
In a straight-up fight, Mado might not have been his match—but Mado had no intention of playing fair with filthy ghouls.
With a sinister grin, he directly leaned backward as the dense RC crystal barrage approached, dropping flat onto the ground right in front of the ghoul, narrowly dodging the first wave.
The ghoul's crimson eyes gleamed with triumph as he looked at Mado lying on the ground, ready to exact his revenge.
Whoosh!
But just as he moved, a sharp whistling sound cut through the air. A massive object suddenly blocked his view. When he looked up, consciousness left him entirely.
Splat!
An overwhelming impact smashed into his face, and his head exploded instantly. Not far away, Amon maintained a cold expression, frozen in the posture of throwing his quinque.
Imitating Mado, Amon had activated his heavy quinque and hurled it with all his strength, crushing the ghoul's skull.
It was nothing more than their exquisite teamwork—senior and junior trusting each other completely, backs entrusted without hesitation.
The battle between humans and ghouls was far from over. After confirming that Mado and Amon were safe, Raize headed alone toward a residential building.
After all, those two were his lifesavers. Seeing them in battle, Raize naturally worried about their safety.
Following his senses, he kicked open the door and familiarly made his way to a basement entrance.
When he entered the pitch-black basement, the scene inside made him pause in shock.
Within the dug-out underground tunnels lay countless rotting corpses, filling the air with a foul stench.
Children. Infants. Adults. Men. Women.
Partially decomposed heads and white bones smeared with scraps of flesh were tossed aside like garbage, discarded casually, as if they were nothing more than trash humans didn't bother to deal with.
Regaining his senses, Raize's killing intent grew even heavier. Faint arcs of electricity flickered across his body as he advanced into the darkness below.
---
In the underground space beneath this area, everything seemed to have been completely hollowed out. The entire space resembled the inside of a living creature's intestines.
The tunnels were made of writhing flesh—"meat walls" formed entirely from kagune. Their principle was similar to quinques, though the techniques were developed by ghouls themselves.
Some CCG investigators were very familiar with these meat walls. They hindered exploration, making progress extremely difficult.
This was one of the ghouls' defensive measures. Almost all large ghoul organizations had such structures in their bases.
Beneath this city district, the ghouls had constructed a full-fledged underground base.
At the end of the maze-like meat-wall tunnels lay an enormous space, filled with large iron cages stained with blood. Inside them were many children and young girls.
There were men as well, but they had all been reduced to miserable, twisted corpses, embedded into the meat walls.
The girls of all ages inside the cages stared out with terror-filled eyes at the madness outside.
Among them was a silver-haired girl in a sailor uniform, squeezed together with two younger girls.
One wore a blue-and-white dress. From her shoulders down her slender arms, everything was white, while below her chest the dress turned a beautiful pale blue.
Her smooth brown hair, like silk, was tied into twin low ponytails. She wore a large white painter's hat, and her sea-blue eyes were filled with fear as she hugged herself and trembled beside Kokoro.
The other girl wore black clothes, about the same age Kotonohana. She had checkered stockings on her legs and tear-filled red eyes. Her name was Suzutsuki Kanade.
All three stared in terror at the scene outside the cage. No one inside dared to make a sound—those who had screamed before were either dead or had become ghoul food.
Numerous mask-wearing ghouls knelt on one knee before a grotesque being—a monster roughly five to six meters tall.
Its lower body resembled that of a spider, while its upper body was that of a long-haired man with grayish skin.
Splurt!
This creature, resembling some kind of alien monster, controlled the spider-like structure of its lower body, opened its huge mouth full of mandibles and fangs, grabbed a large handful of children from the cage—children whose faces were filled with despair and numbness—and tossed them into its hideous maw as casually as eating popcorn.
There were no screams at all. Only the eight eyes on the spider-like lower body flashed with crimson light, while a look of pleasure appeared on the male face of its upper body.
This alien-like monster was not a ghoul, but a devil—a mid-to-high-class stray devil.
Several ghouls standing closer to the front showed no reaction to the scene. They knelt on one knee before the devil and lowered their heads as they spoke.
"My lord, this place has already been discovered by humans. Should we relocate?"
The spider stray devil glanced down at the kneeling ghouls with eyes glowing faintly red, then reached out to pat his stomach.
"With so many ghouls here, facing humans you consider food, you still need to run? I'm not even full yet."
"Please relocate with us, my lord. We will definitely offer you even more humans!"
This devil had subjugated a large number of ghouls as his subordinates, using them to hunt humans and devouring human flesh and blood through some kind of forbidden technique to enhance his strength.
Through this method, his power was already close to the threshold of an High-class devil.
Such forbidden techniques were not rare. In ancient times, many yokai increased their strength by consuming humans.
In modern times, however, almost no one used such methods anymore, because large-scale slaughter of humans would inevitably attract the thunderous retaliation of exorcists or other righteous factions.
In the eyes of this stay devil, humans were nothing more than inferior creatures. Being used to increase his power was their honor. To ghouls, humans were merely prey and food.
Devils and ghouls colluded together. As the boss, the stray devil sheltered his ghoul underlings and used them to hunt humans or rival ghouls.
It could be said that neither of these disgusting beings was anything good.
Raize had long suspected that certain forces might be backing the ghouls, and now he was seeing a living example.
"Miss…"
A slightly androgynous voice growled softly from another cage. Looking over, one could see a beautiful, golden-orange-haired "young man" dressed in a male butler's uniform.